Friday, March 5, 2010

I hope everyone had a great Valentine Day and I hope you all have a happy St.Patrick Day. First I have discoveries of the month. Then it's this month's Surf the Net column, on Steampunk videos and a sneak peak with blurb and excerpt of my Steampunk/Romance, As Timeless As Stone,coming in May.

THIS MONTHS CAVES IN ENGLAND:Kents Cavern is a cave system in Torquay, Devon, England, notable for itsarchaeological and geological features. http://www.kents-cavern.co.uk/

RECENT DISCOVERY OF THE MONTH IN ENGLAND:Ancient timbers uncovered as part of engineering work and mistaken for modernfence-posts could belong to a 4,000-year-old walkway across marshland on theNorfolk-Suffolk border, http://www.megalithic.co.uk/article.php?sid=2146412557

1. How to Make a Steampunk OutfitThis video hooks you up to Steampunk fashion so you can sew your own outfit.Take an old shirt and steampunk it up with a breast plate and brass buttons.Make bloomers out of an old sheet. So now all you need is the brass goggles.http://www.5min.com/Video/How-to-Make-a-Steampunk-Outfit-38339737

2. Carrah Rossini's Amazing AirshipsAn airship opera. This is so beautiful, this fantasy photo montage of airshipsare incredible. You feel like you are really there in the posh over the topsplendor of a steampunked Victorian age.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=87Rr_CDuWDQ

3. Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters: Book TrailerI read this book. Like most writers, I read quite a bit. The book isn't one ofmy favorites but it is interesting and it's a fun read. The book trailer is funalso. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_jZVE5uF24Q

4. Abney Park - Airship Pirate remastered version – steampunkHere is the foremost Steampunk rock group, Abney Park, singing about airshippirates just like those out of Cherie Priest's Boneshaker or Kate Macalister'sSteamed. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ri3zPE5OqJg

6. Steampunk Novel - The Table of Shadows - Trailer 1Here's a book trailer for The Table of Shadows by A., J. Parker. Let thistrailer takes you to a world where science has made great leaps before its time.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=912WaSlrP94

7. Cup Of Brown Joy – ElementalFor the tea lovers. Here's a steampunk video about tea. It's fun and hilarious.Victoria would have loved it. She acutely put scotch in her tea.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eELH0ivexKA

AS TIMELESS AS STONE:Coming in May from Lyrical Press, here is a sneak peak at my firstSteampunk/Romance.

BLURB:In peril for her life, the Priestess Seshat turns herself to stone in ancientEgypt. Centuries later, Ricard, a dashing nineteenth century Frenchman, repairsa broken statue and reads its incantation--unprepared for the gorgeous flesh andblood woman who steps forth.

Seshat is drawn to the brass robots Ricard creates and the glamour of theVictorian age, and most of all to Ricard himself. But the society of his daycannot accept a woman like her. How far will Ricard go to secure her happiness?Is their love strong enough to transcend time itself?

Excerpt:Ricard stepped back as his gaze devoured the entire woman, though stiff andlifeless. The stone looked like lush, sun-warmed skin. Her oval face was darkand delicate, with full, rosy lips. He admired her long lithe body, clad in asheer, white, sleeveless dress, held up only by two delicate linen shoulderstraps. He longed to roam his fingers and lips over her high perched breast andthe thin waist which flared into curved hips and lithe thighs. Then, down to herpretty legs and her slender feet garbed in white papyrus sandals, of the stationshe depicted, an Egyptian priestess of the Middle Kingdom.He drank in her beauty, then he noticed the ornament lying in the valley betweenher breasts, a thick ankh of gold hung from a chain. His fingers absently triedto grab hold of the necklace but it was only part of the statue, no matter howreal it seemed.

"What is this?" He looked at the plaque in the statue's stone hands, heldbeneath the ankh. The last hieroglyphic depicted the symbol for life, an ankh,held up to the woman's nose. Ricard read it silently, sounding it out, Nce xarpwt pwwne Ab etoot abrem... Toujo Abrem etoot pwwne ab... xarp wt au ai ankh qe,and translated it under his breath. "God Horus, as you turned my flesh tostone... God Horus, save me, make me whole...change my stone to flesh...give methe nose breath of life, once more."

The room vibrated and an unnatural wind swirled within. Ricard's hair stood onend, but he could not tear his eyes away from the statue. He grabbed the ankh,and this time it gave way, lifting from the statue's chest. The curiosity thatdrove him as a scientist, as an Egyptologist, caught hold and as strange as thisall seemed, he felt he had come this far, he had to see it through. Laying theankh against the statue's small nose, Ricard acted out the last hieroglyphic onthe plaque.

He shuddered at the sound of a gush of breath. A flash of light struck insidethe room. The shock knocked the breath out of him. The statue moved, but shewasn't stone anymore.

Jean François gasped and stepped back.

Ricard couldn't move. It's a living, breathing woman. He dropped the ankh and itfell against her chest, which now rose and fell with heaving breaths. Ricardmanaged to step back on shaky legs. He gaped at her, unable to think or speak.Alive.

The priestess shrieked. Her brown eyes glowed with anger. "Come near me youHyksos cobra, and you will die!" she warned in Old Egyptian.